2. It "is good" that "public opinion endorses the legal recognition of rights which arise from long-term same sex unions"?

This is an excerpt from His Eminence The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney's weekly column in the Sydney Catholic Weekly (presumably it ran in the previous Sunday's edition of the Sydney Sunday Telegraph, too):

While not many ["Australians who declare themselves homosexual"] would choose to marry if the law was changed, public opinion endorses the legal recognition of rights which arise from long-term same sex unions.

In 1994 the state of Oregon legal­ised “physician-assisted dying” with restrictions and requirements, in­cluding a psychological assessment stating that the patient is competent and is not depressed.

“None of the psychiatrists will do that in Oregon so the ‘Death with Dignity’ people are flying in their own pro-euthanasia psychiatrists.”

[...] Between 500 and 1000 people, some of whom are mentally incompetent, die in the Netherlands each year through euthanasia without consent.

[...] “They’ve just done re­search in Belgium where they found that 32 per cent of doctors who had undertaken euthanasia admitted that they had done it on occasions without the person’s consent.

“That’s a third of the doctors; that’s appalling.”

In 2010 it was revealed that more than 100 Belgian nurses, mostly men, had ended the lives of patients without consent.

“When they were asked why, they said they thought it was in the patients’ best interests … the most frequent victims were people over the age of 80.”

[...] The Oregon Health Auth­ority, which supervises the application of the Death With Dignity legislation, also de­cides whether patients will receive state funding for expensive medication to prolong their lives.

“Some of those drugs can cost up to $30,000 a month,” Margo says.

When the authority de­cides that it’s not going to provide the drug, it won’t pay for it, she said, it distributes a letter which says: “It’s not been approved; however, we would like to remind you that assisted suicide under our system is available at a very reasonable cost.”

Margo is also concerned about the connection be­tween euth­anasia and organ donation, with a recent article in a medical journal ad­dressing the case in Bel­gium.

“In the latest article, four people were euthanased and their lungs were transplanted into another person.

“One of the people was a woman who was mentally ill and not physically ill at all.”

(Belgian legislation now permits euthanasia for the mentally ill.)

[...] “I was asked by a senator in the South Australian Parliament to provide a legal opinion on what they were doing with legislation and to analyse the Second Reading Speech, and I couldn’t be­lieve what was said; it was just wrong – that the Nether­lands shows us there is no slippery slope, that there had been no problem in Oregon and Belgium was completely safe!

4. A reminder of some aspects of the content and origin of Victoria's current abortion law

... critics argue that when the abortion bill was introduced in 2008, it did not have to fully adhere to the human rights charter - as is the case with all other bills - due to a clause known as section 48, which states: ''Nothing in this charter affects any law applicable to abortion or child destruction.''[http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=27356]

Labels: abortion, Victoria

5. Several web-pages on an under-examined aspect of the Norway killings

The Monday after the killings, I was reading the Sydney Daily Telegraph's coverage of them, the first close reading I'd done on the matter, and I was interested to read that the alleged killer's manifesto contained mention of the Knights Templar. This made me wonder whether there might be a Masonic connection involved, and as I was surfing the web that night, visiting the blogs which I usually visit, lo and behold, there at Fr. Roberts's blog was a photo of the alleged killer in the costume of his Lodge (Swedish Rite, I've read). Here's a link to Fr. Roberts's write-up of the matter:

Reginald, Cardinal Pole

(from the pretender Archbishop of Canterbury's website)

Dedication

This blog is dedicated to the memory of

His late Eminence
The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Father in God
Reginald, Cardinal Pole
Legate Emeritus of The Apostolic See
Cardinal-Priest of S. Maria in Cosmedin
Cardinal-Deacon of Ss. Vito & Modesto
Cardinal-Deacon of Ss. Nereo & Achilleo
Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury
Primate of All England